Stay Home During Holidays, Authorities Urge

A boy walks by a tourist information center at Gimpo International Airport on Sunday. /Yonhap

As the summer holidays begin, health authorities are on alert for another possible spike in coronavirus.

Advertisement

The Ministry of Education and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in new guidelines on Sunday went so far as to urge families with school-age children or school staff to stay at home during the holidays.

They urge people to avoid going to places where crowds gather in tight spaces and spend their holidays at home if possible.

An official from the ministry said, "If a student or a school staffer returns from a trip infected, there is a possibility of community transmissions within schools. We came up with these guidelines to keep our schools open".

The guidelines also urge people not to participate in events hosted by schools or religious groups. There were 6.11 million pupils and 550,000 staff in kindergartens and schools nationwide as of Oct. 1, 2019. The two-week school holidays start from the end of this month. 

According to a poll of 6,150 people by the Korea Transport Institute on Sunday, 23.2 percent will go away on a holiday in the first week of August. The daily traffic volume on highways in that week is expected to be 4.76 million vehicles, up 1.3 percent from last year, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Demand for domestic travel has increased as international travel has become impossible. Among those who said they will go on holiday this summer, 98 percent said they will travel somewhere within Korea.